The rate is about 15% under the current market exchange rate.
The government and the bank association reached agreements on several points in a plan to assist troubled Hungarian retail borrowers with foreign currency-based loans, Müller said. Bank association chief Mihály Patai and National Economy Minister György Matolcsy made “serious progress” on the plan at talks in the morning, he said.
The government and bank association expect to close talks on the assistance package on Tuesday and make a joint announcement in the afternoon, Müller said.
Retail borrowers with Swiss franc-based mortgages — more popular than forint mortgages before they were banned — saw their repayments rise as the forint weakened during the crisis, prompting Hungary’s previous government to introduce moratoriums on foreclosures and evictions by lenders. The moratoriums have been extended several times, most recently until July 1, 2011.
Overdue payments on Swiss franc-based loans affected more than 90,000 homes at the end of last year, about a quarter more than the number of homes that were bought and sold during the year, according to NBH experts.
Hungary’s government has been in talks with banks on assistance for these borrowers for months, and fixing exchange rates was mentioned as part of the support in an update to the government’s structural reform programme, the Széll Kálmán Plan, published in April.
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